


Not quite their origin story

by incandescence



Category: Hey! Say! JUMP, Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: M/M, also chinen worms his way in here as usual, but not really, i didn't know i had so many feelings about grocery shopping until i wrote this oops, i tried to stop him but i couldn't, it's their off time, superhero au, they go grocery shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 12:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incandescence/pseuds/incandescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know what to say other than that they run out of food and have to stock up. It's a thing that they do together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not quite their origin story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alchemicink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink/gifts).



> For [alchemicink](archiveofourown.org/users/alchemicink), who wanted Takanoo grocery shopping.
> 
> It's been a while since I went grocery shopping in Japan, so this is definitely not accurate.

He’d been doing so well on the way here, but as is always the case when he lets his guard down, something always happens.

In this case, it’s running into the door frame instead of passing through it.

Inoo hisses when his shoulder collides with the cool metal, sharp stinging pain shooting all the way up his arm. “Goddamn it,” he curses, and tries to massage his right shoulder with his left hand. The surly looking store clerk with the blond curly hair behind the counter doesn’t even look up from his magazine. 

Behind him, there’s a low chuckle. “What, a renowned superhero can’t handle a door?”

Enraged, Inoo whirls around, points a finger in Takaki’s face. “You know very well I bruised like an apple yesterday, shut up.” He makes to turn back around, dropping his voice to a whisper, “And stop using that word.” They’ve been reprimanded enough times now for almost revealing their identities. Chinen has been so far been able to shut down the rumours, but each warning comes with an increasing amount of eyebrow furrow, which is just Bad News. For all his complaining, Inoo would prefer to keep his suit - he designed it, okay, and even though nobody else would wear it, he’d rather it be in his wardrobe than in a museum. Who knows what fake story Chinen would come up with as an explanation for his “retirement.”

“Okay okay,” Takaki placates, holding up his hands. But he does hold open the door for Inoo, guides him through with a gentle nudge. By the time they make it in, Inoo’s forgotten all about it when his eyes spy the bright red and yellow signs in his favourite aisle.

“You’re not getting the 10kg bag,” Takaki sighs once he’s caught up with him in the rice section of the conbini.

Inoo scrunches up his face at his partner in defiance, and starts tugging on the nearest one. “It’s on sale.”

“We already have two bags of the same brand at home, Kei. We don’t need another one.”

Inoo shakes his head. His mother taught him to always value a sale, and white rice has a long shelf life, anyway. “It’s my favourite,” he insists, and with minimal grunting, hauls the bag into the trolley Takaki procured with his uninjured hand. Once the bag is in, he flexes his arm. Maybe Chinen is right, and he should work on some muscle training. His reflection in the mirror this morning somewhat resembled that of a tall shrimp. Inoo makes a face in memory.

Takaki’s giving him that look where his eyebrows go flat and his lips are pursed, but he doesn’t try to take the bag out and instead just wheels the trolley around. Inoo grins at his retreating back. Score 1-0 to Lightning Striker.

Humming to the music playing from the speakers, he waltzes down the produce aisle to join Takaki, plastering himself onto his back while Takaki examines expiry dates on hamburger steak packages. “Remember when we worked in a conbini?” Inoo asks dreamily. He hasn’t brought it up in a while. “You couldn’t eat hamburger for years after that. Look how far you’ve come.” It’s their origin story, late nights and early mornings in that dingy looking conbini on the corner of the street across from the beach, but Chinen and Takaki will vehemently deny it. Inoo thinks it’s quite a charming story, really, college students digging into expired packets of ramen and learning how to tell the difference between “smells funky but still mostly edible” and “should have been thrown away weeks ago ew get it away from me” because it was all they could afford. The best part of it was those strolls to the beach with Takaki after a long shift, passing a cigarette between each other on the cold sand, falling asleep in the passenger seat of Takaki’s car, or in the backseat with Chinen.

Takaki’s version goes something like this:  
I went for a swim at my beloved beach. Inoo was there too, electricity crackling all around him while he gazed longingly at the ocean’s beauty. I not only seduced him with my sleek form, but saved his drowning friend. 

Chinen’s goes like this:  
I introduced my two friends to each other because I only make friends with cool people. They turned out to be super powerful, despite their appearances.

Me? I’m the one that keeps them out of trouble. They’d be nothing without me.

“Stop reminding me,” Takaki grumbles, throwing three packages of hamburger into the cart. 

Inoo beams, leans over to pluck some chicken from the shelf to throw that in, too. “Your mama’s karaage,” he says by way of explanation when Takaki raises a brow. 

The brow falls, as does the face it’s attached to. “Oh no, I already struggled putting on my suit the other day.” 

Inoo is not proud to say that he laughs whenever Takaki overreacts. He can’t help it - it’s his default reaction to anything. “The zip was stuck, that wasn’t because you can’t fit into it anymore baby. Don’t worry, you still look great.” He winks, but that just makes Takaki look even more disgruntled.

“Easy for you to say. You always look good in yours.” 

That surprises him, in a pleasant way. It’s not often he hears that, honestly, but that’s what you get when the only working out you can be bothered to do is the accidental kind as a hazard of the job. That’s acceptable. Inoo smirks. “Noticed, did you?” he asks, and skips in front of the trolley so he can do a little wiggle before prancing over to the next aisle.

“Grapes, grapes, graaaaaaaapes!” Inoo sings, and gets to work sorting out the firm ones from the soggy. 

“Make sure to get some red ones too,” Takaki calls over from where he’s examining a pineapple.

“No!” Inoo shouts back, childishly, but the red bunches are the ones he put in the bag first.

When the cashier rings up the bill later, they just kind of stare at it, then at each other, resigned, and start digging out their wallets.

“Um, I think I have a few coins, lemme check,” Inoo says once his notes are all on the counter, doing a sort of wiggle to reach into his right back pocket, and then his left. 

In the end, they make it with five yen to spare, which Takaki drops into the tip jar.

“At least we didn’t have to put anything back!” Inoo says, staggering out the door with the bag of rice cradled safely in his arms, narrowly missing the door frame again. Last time they were short on change, they’d had to put an embarrassing amount back underneath the death glare of not one, but two, cashiers. He still refuses to go back there, even if Takaki says the new girl there isn’t anywhere near as terrifying.

Takaki has a very skewed sense of what is terrifying.

Inoo does not trip and fall into the backseat of the car this time, putting the bag of rice in. He simply stands on the sidewalk and lobs it inside, instead. And may or may not flail around to get back his balance, but a quick glance over the car shows that Takaki didn’t see.

Muscle training tomorrow, yes. So much muscle training. Oh, but—

“Is there still that soy-milk pudding in the fridge from the other day?” he asks Takaki as he slides into the passenger seat. 

Takaki nods his affirmation as he backs out of the parking lot. “Should be. Unless you ate one at midnight again.”

“Uh.”

Well. Inoo settles into the reclined seat, head resting on his hands. He’ll find out soon enough. And anyway, Takaki will probably let him have his.

“Are we going to the beach tonight?” he asks opening his eyes just before they pass the park that marks the halfway point home. It’s been a while since they’ve been. Last night there was that stolen car they reclaimed, and before that, Inoo long stopped counting how often they were on separate routes at different times. If he stopped counting, time would go faster, he’d assured himself, but that hadn’t been the case. Instead, it just meant that a long stretch of an unidentifiable period had felt the most isolating than it had in years.

If not for these grocery trips in between patrols, Inoo probably would have gone crazy.

…More crazy.

Takaki’s got eyes on the road, but his face is angled towards him. “Yeah, I was hoping we could.” He shifts back in his seat again. “You feeling okay? Not too battered? We don’t need to bandage you up like a mummy?”

“Fuck off,” Inoo retorts, flipping Takaki the finger at his loud cackle.

“We can have a barbecue,” Takaki promises, and Inoo cheers.

There’s still pudding in the fridge. And Inoo grills the chicken instead of frying, and there’s plenty of time to muck around on the shore, and witness Takaki in his element before tangling together on their picnic rug to watch the sun set.


End file.
